tis evil in the wild to fare
by irnan
Summary: You should have known better than to talk to the boy on the street corner. That sort of thing never turns out well.


_This is a disclaimer._

_**AN:** Written for the prompts "__shattered, glass, chill, run". Title from Tolkien, of course.  
_

**Tis evil in the Wild to fare**

The chill of the room seeps into your bones and lodges there, freezing you from inside out. There is still a little light slanting through the slats that cover the windows, even though you're sure it's late evening for now. You can see the dust motes floating and dancing in the strips of light, obscenely cheerful.

The fireplace to your left is a black gaping maw in the wall of the cabin, empty and soulless and cold, like it was on that night nearly sixty years ago. Not twenty-four hours ago, you laughed at that old story, brushed it off as urban legend, safe in the belief that people are fundamentally good and not even the notoriously mean breed of humans that metamorphose into "the popular kids" once they're old enough to go to high school are capable of tying some poor bastard to a chair in a cabin in the Minnesota woods and leaving him there to freeze to death without a jacket, let alone a burning fire.

But the sight of that fireplace, the yawning mouth of some otherworldy monster hungry for flesh, makes you think otherwise.

You're too cold to scream. Too cold to struggle. The ropes at wrists and ankles chafe when you move, rough and heavy, burning your skin. Same with the gag, cutting into the corners of your mouth. Momma always said you had delicate skin, _need to care of it, sweetie. Don't forget your sunblock, and take some lotion with you._

But Momma is three hundred miles away in a city you've never set foot in, setting up house with her new boyfriend. You're not invited. Never will be, you suspect. And even if you are, Dad will never let you go. That last fight they had is branded into your brain, every word that you heard from the top of the stairs and all the ones you imagined to fill in the gaps. Dad isn't as bad as some, but he is, in his own words, a God-fearing man, and the idea that the woman he married could abandon him, and their child, so cavalierly hurt him deeply. You think he called her a slut at one point, told her she wasn't fit to take care of you. That her nature would taint you somehow.

But you were only nine then, and you didn't really understand what he meant.

You're not sure you agree with him anyway. You lost your virginity over a year ago, to Todd Reynolds, who was cute and funny and moved away in the spring, reluctantly and with many promises to write on both your parts. You've never felt particularly damned for having sex with him. Or sinful, or whatever it is. The first time was just weird, and after that it got progressively more fun.

Somewhere in the cabin, something clatters, and you jump, jerking out of your wandering thoughts almost painfully. The ropes cut into your skin with the sudden movement, and you slump against the straight-backed chair with a muffled sob of pain. Maybe you're bleeding. Maybe they'll cut right through your wrists and ankles if you just pull hard enough, letting you fall out of the chair and crawl forward on stumps of limbs, dripping blood, rope fibres sticking to the wounds.

Wow. OK, morbid.

But then, you've never been trapped in a cabin in the woods by a homicidal ghost before.

You're not sure how you knew he was a ghost. Just one of those things, you guess. The boy was fat, tilting towards ugly, and very pale. He used a few funny words, too, expressions you last heard in movies like _Grease_ or really old TV shows, and his clothes were old-fashioned too. Much like yours, really. Dad doesn't like you looking too… well, he never says like what, exactly, but you understand what he means.

Sometimes you think he's a little afraid you'll leave him for another man like Momma did. That's plain silly. He's strict sometimes, but he's your Dad, and you love him. End of story.

Anyway. Where were you? Oh, the boy. The creepy one. You met him at the turn-off to the road leading to Old Man Miller's haunted cabin. He told you he'd just been up there for a dare. You laughed and joked with him for a few minutes, and when you turned away – wham!

Kidnapped.

And then tied to a chair, and left to die. It's kinda embarrassing, really, that the one time you meet a real live ghost, all it does to you is tie you up. What kind of a story is that to tell on _Jerry Springer_?

Do they even accept ghost stories on _Jerry Springer_? Cause if not, you'd have to find someplace else to go, and that would suck, because you don't watch any other daytime TV but _Jerry Springer_, so you don't know where to start applying to go on.

Of course, if you die up here, the question is moot anyway.

It's a scruffy place to die. Dusty and old, broken-down. Not that you were hoping for a huge four-poster feather bed with a horde of grandchildren all around you, or anything, but something a little cleaner would have been nice.

Sometimes, the boy turns up, as if checking to see if you're still alive. He just appears, flickers and glares, flickers some more and then disappears again. It's really annoying. If you can't die someplace clean, then at least you should be allowed to die in peace. Isn't that in the Geneva Convention, or something? _We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men must be permitted to die in peace_.

Maybe you're delirious. Maybe he drugged you with ghost-Rohypnol, or something.

Maybe you're just concussed. On second thoughts, that's more than likely.

So not only are you in the process of being turned into a human popsicle, a stalagtite made of seventeen-year-old girl, but you're also going to go insane first, because you're brain is hopelessly scrambled by a vicious blow to the head from a ghost geek.

Suddenly, you're really, really regretting not going out with the gorgeous new guy the first time he asked. Play hard-to-get, Melissa advised wisely, and you did, and now you'll never be in a position to find out if he's as good a kisser as you suspect. Dammit.

Again, it's the sound of something shattering in the cabin that makes you jerk upright, drags you out of the increasingly muzzy and confused thoughts that were rambling through your brain like they owned it. There's quick footsteps, and voices, and then – ohGodohGod –gunfire, and you want to scream past the gag in your mouth before it occurs to you that gunfire means people. Real, living people.

Your body feels heavy and clumsy and numb with cold, but you twist it in the chair and make noises behind the gag and do your damndest to attract attention, and then a hand rests on your shoulder and a voice says, "It's OK, Jenny, I'm here, we got you."

Strange snick by your ear before a thin coldness touches your skin and rips up through the gag. A knife, you realize, and there's the new boy kneeling by the chair, working at the ropes with a wicked-looking blade. He's got scruffy blonde hair and a thick black jacket, and there's a heavy silver ring on his hand.

"Everything OK?" The voice is a man's, deep and harsh, and the boy looks up and nods. "Yessir," he raps out, and you twist around a little sluggishly until you see who he's talking to: his father. You've seen him around a few times in town, and he scares you a bit. He's quiet and grim, usually, although you noticed that his sons can still make him smile, and when he looks at you, you feel like glass: transparent and fragile. Like he can see right through you, and knows all the places to hit you so that you'll shatter. He looks at everyone that way, though.

"Have you seen it?" he asks you, and you know instantly what he means.

But your voice seems to be on strike, as the only thing that comes out is a hoarse, wordless croak, so you nod instead, and gesture at the door behind Dean, directly in front of you. That's where he always appears from.

Dean looks over his shoulder sharply, and you're struck by how much he resembles his father then, all determination and grimness. "Miller said they buried him in the cabin itself," he says.

"Get her out," his father orders. "I'll take care of it."

"Floorboards," you manage. They both jerk and look at you in surprise. "The story," you carry on. "Under the floorboards. Didn't bury him, ground was too hard."

Dean looks delighted. "You're awesome," he tells you, and his Dad smiles a little, and nods at you. Respect. Well done.

Then Dean's tugging you to your feet, and agony lances through you. His arms go round your waist, holding you up, and you stagger across the floor, leaning on him, as the noise of wood tearing and breaking fills the cabin. Dean takes your weight like it's nothing, and whoa. There's muscle under those loose clothes he wears – wiry still, the leanness of a boy, but once he fills out… yum.

"Come on, Jenny," he says, low and soothing, encouraging. "You're doin' real good, you know. Real good. Almost out, and then you'll be in the warm. I'll look after you, don't worry, come on."

It's a little degrading in a way, being spoken to like a child, but what with the pain and cold and numbness, you find you don't mind so much. Your hands are sheer agony as the circulation begins to run again, the bllod surging back into empty vessels. If you let yourself think about your feet, you might just stop and die.

Dean literally hoists you into the cab of the big truck his Dad drives, and turns the key to get the engine – and the heaters – running. Turns out you are bleeding at the wrists, your socks having protected your ankles for the most part. Dean smoothes cream into the wounds, wraps them in bandages. Wraps you in a blanket and pulls you close.

"Body warmth," he says.

"Bull," you answer, muffled in his shirt. "You're trying to cop a feel."

He laughs out loud. "See, this is why I wanna go out with you."

"Because you're masochistic?"

"Because you're awesome."

You smile a little, ridiculously pleased. "Well. You _did_ kinda save my life. I guess. So. Um. Yeah."

Dean, it turns out, is a far, far better kisser than Todd Reynolds.


End file.
